Love and Respect for June 2nd Podcast
Added 2023-05-29 21:37:33 +0000 UTCIt's time to get your questions in for this week's podcast. Type your question, topic, or game in the comments below. Be sure to include your preferred name if you don't like the one here on Patreon.
Please submit your entries by Wednesday at 7:00 PM Pacific. If your entry is not selected, feel free to submit it again the following week. We appreciate your support and are grateful for each and every submission, if we're able to include them in the podcast or not.
L&R
Bloodworth
Comments
Love and Respect: Hey Allies, So I finally played and beat my very first Witcher game, the Witcher 3. I got it when it first came out but only just got around to it now after the next gen upgrade dropped. And I have to say...I was really disappointed with it and frankly I'm baffled. I'm baffled because I was excited to play this game and was really expecting to enjoy it. It won game of the year in 2015 and I'm a fan of a good RPG ( dragon age, final fantasy, mass effect, kingdom hearts, etc). I thought the world in the Witcher 3 was well done and expansive. The characters and dialogue were all well done. Monsters had some great designs. And the game had all the right parts to make a great RPG game. So why was I so disappointed? The combat. I frankly found it so basic and uninspiring and it didn't feel good at all. I would just use Quen before a fight, cast Igni then run in and spam light attacks and everything would die. I didn't need to plan or strategize in any fight, my 3 pronged attack plan was all it took to win every fight and I was on the normal difficulty. Could have I turned up the difficulty to make fights harder? Sure. But it still wouldn't have changed my feelings that the underlying combat design just wasn't very fun/ good to me. And because of that I didn't feel compelled to explore beyond the main quest line or a handful of side quests because it was feeling like a chore to play. So my question is this, why/ how does a game like this receive such glowing praise when a core mechanic of it's gameplay isn't very good? I know these things are usually subjective but when looking over several reviews from critics, and even some of the allies have said this, the combat was called out as being not good in several reviews, which to me seems like more of an objective observation. Yet those reviews gave the game 8's and higher. I'm just confused because I really expected to like this game based on the reviews and the type of games I enjoy and didn't because of one key, core, game mechanic. I'm not trying to pour water on the game for people who enjoyed it and I'm glad those people do but I'm honestly baffled that even people who enjoyed it and give it such high praise, a lot of them seem to say the combat isn't very good. As a bonus if you want to answer this since my question is so long already, has there ever been a game or a franchise you were excited to get into but after playing it, you were surprised that you didn't really liking the game or were disappointed in it? Love and Respect, Chris Eyerly
Chris Eyerly
2023-05-31 19:06:02 +0000 UTCHey Allies! Does writing a review change your experience of a game? Do you do anything differently than a personal playthrough, or is there any game you wish you could have played without having to review? If Brad is on the panel, I'd love to hear about Elden Ring and Tears of the Kingdom specifically. One of my favourite aspects of these games is the communal discovery prior to the Writing of the Wikis, and I wonder how playing the game pre-release, before the zeitgeist forms, versus playing at launch with everyone else, affects your playthrough. L&R, THIEF
thief
2023-05-31 18:14:02 +0000 UTCGreetings Allies, (Sorry for the long post) After the madness that was 2020 I needed to delete all my social media for my mental health. Recently with a heap of gaming news being dropped this summer I decided to redownload twitter and make sure my feed is only video game related so I can be up to date on a hobby that brings me so much joy. Within days I now have deleted twitter with no intention on going back. The constant negativity in the video game community outweighs any benefits I gain from the platform. I was hoping to find people raving about how great the new Spiderman game looked just to find a long discussion on how terrible the graphics were because Miles didn’t look wet enough while swimming. This brings us to my question. How do you all handle the overpowering negativity that is in video game culture. Do you use social media? How do you tune it out while writing a review for a heavily criticized game pre release like Forspoken or the Last of Us Pt2? Thank you for all the positivity you bring. I genuinely think the whole industry can learn a thing or two on how to both enjoy and criticize games from y’all. L&R Jordan Dallwig (JiggyDiggie)
Jordan Dallford
2023-05-31 15:46:31 +0000 UTCGreeting Allies! When the Hot Wheel Unleashed was announced, I was extremely excited. I loved the concept and was so ready to jump in day one, despite knowing there would be some DLC added later on. What I didn't expect was exactly how much they nickel and dimed players as the game's popularity increased. The recent announcement that Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 is officially happening has left me torn. While I'm excited for the game and the new locations, vehicles, game modes, and even apparent story mode, I can't help but think about all of the DLC I bought for the first game that will likely be stuck there. Not only that, but I'm now aware of just how far they'll likely push the in-game store and microtransactions in this sequel, since they know going in how successful the first game was. I know microtransactions and in-game stores are nothing new nowadays, but its gotten to the point of souring me on games I should otherwise be excited for. LEGO 2K Drive is another example of a game I normally would've bought day one, but I couldn't see myself supporting with the current state of its marketplace. Are there any games you've been turned away from because of these situations, or are you hopeful that maybe one day publishers will turn around on this idea? L&R & Sorry Enforcer, spongejay1
spongejay1
2023-05-31 15:14:25 +0000 UTCIn honor of Across the Spider-Verse coming out, I want to know: if you could pick any game and set up a multiverse scenario for a character in that game, what game would it be and what character would you choose? For example, maybe you’d want to see how twisted a Mortal Kombat multiverse would be where you’d have to fight a legion of different Shang Tsungs.
NeO JD
2023-05-31 14:50:07 +0000 UTCHi Allies I want to ask you about game difficulty (don't worry I'm not going to say Fromsoft games and souls likes need an easy mode). I have been playing games since the late 80's early 90's but have never been great or a master at games. I always feel I have need to play games at the easiest difficulty setting in order to enjoy and complete them, and there are some games I have not been able to finish. I will try some games for a second time at a higher difficulty that I really like such as God of War 2018 (which I was able to finish and defeat the Valkyrie Queen) and Ragnarok (Which I also finished). My question is have I really finished a game if I don't do it on the normal or higher difficulty? Keep Up the great work and Love and Respect. Ghost Samurai
Ghost Samurai
2023-05-31 07:56:51 +0000 UTCHey Allies, With Street Fighter 6 right around the corner, let’s play a game! This one’s called “Just Your Basic Street Fight.” How well do you know your fighting game characters? I’ve selected 24 of the most basic, plain-Jane, “boring” names. You tell me if there is a fighting game character with that name. A bonus point if you can name the game series it’s from. (I’ve included last names, where appropriate.) Round 1, Fight! Ken (Masters – Street Fighter, Amada – Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, the Eagle – Tatsunoko vs. Capcom) Jill (Valentine – Marvel vs. Capcom) Steve (Fox – Tekken) Sonya (Blade – Mortal Kombat) Bob (Richards – Tekken, Wilson – KOF) Matt – None Seth (Street Fighter, KOF, Under Night In-Birth) Leo (Kliesen – Tekken, Whitefang – Guilty Gear, Red Earth) Frank (West – Marvel vs. Capcom) Roy (Bromwell – Rival Schools) Sam – None Lilly/Lili (Street Fighter 6, Rochefort – Tekken, Kane – KOF) Jack (Tekken, World Heroes, Power Stone, Turner – Art of Fighting, Jack-O – Guilty Gear, Jacky Bryant – Virtua Fighter) Let’s end with some Allies, past and present: Ben – None Brad (Burns – Virtua Fighter, Wong – Dead Or Alive) Brandon – None Dan (Hibiki, Street Fighter) (No Daniel) Don – None Gabby – None Kyle – None Michael (Max – Fatal Fury) Mike (Street Fighter 1, Haggar – Marvel vs. Capcom) Isla (You know this one – KOF, but pronounced differently) But is there an Ian? - Nope I hope this game took you for a ride. Love and Respect, -Eric
Eric Bruns
2023-05-31 01:30:36 +0000 UTCHi Fredrik from Norway here! The first thing I thoght when playing Skyrim back in the days, was: I wish it had a two player mode so I could play it with a friend. Same happened with Dragons Dogma, Breath of the Wild, AC Valhalla, Elden Ring, Spider man. Need to add that Im a sony pony, so those mods are out of resch.! Whats the deal, does nobody want this? I hoped Tears of the Kingdom would pull it off with Zelda and Link, but no😔 Is two/four player mode cursed? Is it hard to make? Whats the deal? There is many great coop games, but when Oitriders and games like Gotham Knights arrive it seens nobody is interested and the dont get as much hype even they stick out in the myriad of live as a service games and others mmo’s. They who made Outward know what I want, but why dont they who make the big triple a games value this? Great show! Love you!
Fredrik Rysjedal
2023-05-30 19:51:12 +0000 UTCHi Allies, What's up with PlayStation? Lately it seems like we are hearing one bad news after another from them. In the past month or so: - Pixelopus project was cancelled and the studio shutdown - Deviation Games' project (FPS GaaS title) with PlayStation was cancelled and the studio laid off most of its staff - Reports about Final Strike Games' project (PvP GaaS title) with PlayStation being cancelled and that studio laying off some of its staff as well - PlayStation Visual Arts Studio's got hit by some layoffs as a highly stylized GaaS project they were helping on didn't turn out as expected - And lastly, after 3-4 years of development, The Last of Us Multiplayer game from ND will now essentially go through some sort of reboot/reassessment as they scale down that team to figure out what they want to do with that project So, what's going on? Why are they having so many back to back project cancellations and layoffs? Is this due to their focus on Live Service titles and their lack of experience in making such games? What are your thoughts allies? Cheers
Son of Sparda
2023-05-30 17:52:42 +0000 UTCHey Allies, In a recent bit of backlog-busting, I booted up Keiji Inafune's ReCore and had a wonderful time! The jumping and movement mechanics felt solid and were fun to experiment with. The gunplay, along with the core extraction ability, made combat exciting and fresh. I deleted it after about 5 hours of play time, mostly because the large empty desert environment and milquetoast writing felt like they would leave me disappointed if I kept playing. I feel like I left that game with a positive impression because I got out while I was ahead, whether that feeling is "correct" or not. Have you ever stopped playing a game you enjoyed because you could see the potential problems down the road if you kept playing? Love and Respect, rocketsinflight
Josh Kruse
2023-05-30 17:29:01 +0000 UTC
